Tag Archives: Beach

This time last week, we sat at Pearl enjoying tropical heat, the tiniest smattering of warm rain, fine French cuisine and ice cold bubbly that, even though it wasn’t French, tasted just a little bit superb because it was part of the dream.

We awoke from the dream in fits and starts during the three and a half hour flight home, not wanting to fully accept that it was all over. Our heads crashed onto familiar pillows even later still, trying to prolong the dream and finally, about 12 hours after leaving the exquisite surrounds (and delicacies) of Restaurant Pearl we awoke fully to the reality that the dream was over. O.V.A. OVA!

We skip forward now, a week of work, a week of memories blending, murkily with the ‘now’, keeping eyes closed as much as possible, not willing to let the everyday in, not just yet.
A week of one foot in Perth (reality) and one foot in Bali (dream). Psychologically weird, but it works for me and I know Peter is very much straddling the fine line between dream and reality – still. And it was a short week.

Then what?
Easter break.
We’re told that Easter isn’t what it was or even is. We’re not allowed to call it Easter and it is pagan worship or it is offensive to people who follow another God, chocolate has nothing to do with Jesus and it’s not really about him anyway and it’s just a holiday and sadly for the ANZACs, they get tacked on the end of the non Easter break and all in all it is just a meaningless five day holiday this year.
Anyway, I praise God for everything, good and bad and think this holiday is a good thing and continue to marvel at how complicated and divisive a thing that was once simple has become.

It’s a holiday!

We’re at our ‘country’, ‘holiday’ house.
We will have four nights here.
Four nights of turning on the old lamp (I inherited from my Mum’s friend’s mother) as the sun dips towards the horizon – my ritual.

Every night that the lamp is turned on is a blessing. Usually it is once only, every couple of weeks, but on these holidays one night is followed by two and two by three and somehow time feels like it is multiplying and we will never have to return to our city or working life, then there is the fourth night of turning on the lamp, knowing it is the last, leaving it on because to turn is off would feel like the end.
Kindly husband, who loves so much, in the beginning, that there will four nights, will be brave enough to face the ‘turning off of the lamp on the LAST night’.
He is good and strong and brave. He knows how to work and he knows how to play and he counts even the smallest blessing and is grateful and sustained until the next one comes along.

The day here. Time to think. Thinking disturbs me. I think too much, about too many things and it is a waste of time. I am barely in the here and now! I would not even begin to share the thoughts on this blog. I think I will start another one, under a pseudonym (can’t believe I even knew how to spell that).

It will be a dark and disturbed blog, but it will be the side of me that loves and longs for tropical storms, black clouds, thunder, lightening, torrential rain, crashing waves and just wild stuff in general.

You won’t know it’s me.

Don’t misunderstand. This is me here. But there is deeper stuff. I wonder (most seriously, I ponder very deeply) if there is such a side to the famed Pioneer Woman or Kelle Hampton. But how could there not be? Where is the balance? Where is their ‘real’ reality? They make even the bad sound sweet. Their bad is sugar coated. That’s what it is. I can’t do the sugar coating, so I just keep quiet.

So, back to our day.
Easter Saturday.
I rose from bed at 5am.
Oh, of course it wasn’t my plan, but I was woken by the idling engine and squeaky brakes of what I will call here ‘some moron’ crawling the kerb (in the dark!) scouring the piles of junk everyone has placed out for the annual collection. Even now, thinking about that person, I want to strangle them! 5am! We went to bed after 2am! That’s another story, where I want to strangle ‘channel 7’ for extending the length of a 90 minute movie to three hours because of advertising every ten minutes.
You see?
All this stuff that makes me so mad I have murderous thoughts?

Out the front window at 5am was a world I felt privileged to observe.
The first thing I noticed was the cool, cool air; a rare gift in this endless Summer (and now Autumn). Then I realised I could hear the ocean; the intermittent roar as the swell became waves that broke on the shore half a kilometre away.
The complete silence of the night was punctuated by the rhythmic pounding of the dark, cold shore by the endless and immeasurable weight of that water that travels to us and to every shore. I heard it. I listened, waiting, knowing the intervals would be short, waiting for the car that has originally woken me to do its return trip down the road (we live in a ‘place’ – you have to come out the way you went in).
And then I noticed the mist (remembered that song ‘Mull of Kintyre’ – ‘Oh, mist rolling in from the sea’). At first I thought I must have been imagining it, but having laid down, tired of waiting for the vehicle to make its return journey, I arose about five minutes later, hearing another vehicle and realised I could barely see across the street. Mist! Fog! Delicious and cool. No one would believe later when the sun had risen, that it had even existed. It was magical and even I think now, in the heat of the day, that I must have imagined it. But I didn’t. It was there. It was 5.30am by then. The car had returned, driving down the street still searching for rubbish that they could collect to sell at some ‘trash and treasure’ event. They stopped further down. I could see their tail lights and hear their squeaking brakes. Again, I wondered how easy it would be for me to strangle them.

The mist rolled in, I went back to bed and pulled an extra blanket over us both.
Mist equals cold, right?
We slept until nine. The sun was high in the sky by then. The heat of the day had dried up the ephemeral qualities of the dark, cold, early morning.
The mist was me. The sun was not.
When will this Summer end?

A lethargic day. Washing laundry. Reading the local papers my neighbour kindly leaves for us over the fence. I read back to the beginning of the month, but around these parts nothing much happens, unless you call petty crime and nightclubbing news.

I notice a branch has been cut from the massive, out of control, gum tree at the front. Good! If we lived here it would be easy to keep these trees under control, but we don’t and they are growing wild. I don’t know what to do with them, so if neighbours have a problem with their growing and wish to cut them up (or down) then they are most welcome to. I must pay them a visit to thank them and apologise for the out-of-control growing that they do while we are elsewhere, working for a living, working to pay for this place and the water bill!

It’s the Easter break.
Everyone and their dogs are down here holidaying. The shops are madness – holiday makers buying out the meat section for their barbeques. We decide on laksa and make do with what is still available on the shelves at 4pm on Easter Saturday in a seaside holiday town.

It’s Monday now.
There was rain yesterday and sometime during the night before.
It is sunshine now, though.
The last Summery holiday for the year?
Hopefully.
Winters by the seaside are soulful and wild and the real me craves that, as much as I don’t like being cold!

Tomorrow we will pack up and head back to the city.

But today, we will make the most of our leisurely existence.
This is the making of our Easter 2011 memories…

The mozzie coil (lavender scented, chosen by Peter) burns as the sun sets on another day Bali style. I have a problem with time – well not exactly with time, but how quickly it passes. So there’s my whinge and confession. I am not happy about the speed of the passage of time at this particular point in our holiday. But I’ll cope, I’m sure.

Today we slept in!! This is bad. We miss out on Bali. Sleeping in, as acceptable as it may sound whilst on holidays, is not something we want to be encouraged to do, but we did go to bed at 1am and we’re not as young as we used to be, when you could party all night and wake up early with no remnant of the previous night’s overindulgence remaining. So tonight, we have done what we always do; said we will have any early night. That is why at 6.40pm I am beginning the blog and Peter is running a little errand to Bintang and the wine shop to stock up on the obvious and the ‘turn-down’ service people are already making their way to our door and we don’t know where we’re going to have dinner (or if we even need any to be truthful). Obviously we are hopeless about going to bed early. In Bali, after sunset, we come alive. Well, I do to some extent and poor Peter tries to keep his eyes open and not let the team down – WE’RE ON HOLIDAYS!!

Turn down people are here – this could be our cue. But no….

Too busy sipping on my ‘blue lagoon’ – tropical fruits Absolut, blueberry Fanta and soda water. Well it is blue! Where is Peter with my wine?

Today commenced a little hurriedly, due to our sleep in. We managed to make it to breakfast with minutes to spare, scoffed eggs, bacon, toast, tropical fruits with lime juice, char kway teow and a latte each before cabbing it down to Spa Bali. Today Peter had a massage (he’s loving these every day) and I had my first Hair Cream Bath. Basically this is a head massage using tonnes of conditioner, with the massaging moving down to the neck and arms – one hour of bliss. Today, personally, I didn’t feel up to a massage. Yesterday when we went, I felt bruised all over (but I’m not) when they started digging in their little fingers and pressing so hard I watch their feet leave the ground, I was in a bit of agony so thought today would be a good day to sit it out.

We are on a mission to find a day spa that is affordable and gorgeous. Cheap usually is not gorgeous and gorgeous is usually not cheap, but we search on. Tomorrow we’re going to try a spa in the other direction, down on Jalan 66 and I will offer up my body yet again to the cause!

After our ‘treatments’ this morning we returned to what is becoming a regular haunt, Me’nu, for coffee and a quick chat with Frank about the dog who likes to frolic and play (a playful dog in Bali? I find this hard to believe) and wreaks havoc during the night in the fountain/fish pond decorating the front of his restaurant. I’d love to see that!

We then scamper off down our secret laneway, hoping to find an even faster route, but alas, and head back to our villa. We decided to keep walking and exploring and walking and exploring and….

We buy four Bintang singlets in girly colours for the teenage girls in our lives. We have probably bought the wrong colours, the wrong sizes. Who would know with teenagers. Anyway we have our first ‘bargaining’ experience. I’m trying to remember what they said on Trip Advisor about what you should pay for them and when the man announced 400,000 rupiah, I was sure he was taking me for a fool, but hey, that’s the game. I offered 150. He offered 300. I offered 160. He said ‘no’. I offered 170. He said ‘meet half way – 250’?? Huh? What is that half of? I say ‘180’. He says ‘a little bit more’. We agree on 190!! I think I may have paid too much. We go. Peter is wondering what he has just witnessed.

We wander further. We find second hand books. Peter needs another book to read. He’s finally finished the book he started about two years ago. I am not able to broker a deal with this vendor, so we walk off. I thought that was supposed to work. It doesn’t. Peter has nothing to read now.

We reach the beach at the end of Jalan 66. Every inch of beach is packed with brown, brown people, tanning themselves. I’m not sure how brown they are wanting to get. They must be European. Us Aussies know the dangers, right? People are surfing and doing other beachy stuff. Lots of people. I feel old (and very white).

We pop into Lanai for a mixed juice and Hawaiian pizza and a bit of people watching (plenty to see) before cabbing it back to our villa, which is where we have been ever since, sun baking and reading.

I’m reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert. I haven’t read a book from front to back for about a year but this is it – my holiday reading. I know this has been a popular book around these parts and apparently people are coming to Bali because of what they’ve read in the book, but I’m not up to the Bali bit yet. It’s at the end. I hope I get there before we leave but at this point I’m beginning to think I’m not as interested in this lady as she is in herself. I’m sure the Bali bit is the best. I’m thinking of cutting straight to that bit. Time – time – is the enemy.

And here we are now. It’s 8.00pm on our ‘early’ night. Peter’s back with the wine.

‘Om Bali’ – I don’t know if that means anything but back in the 80’s all the t-shirts said ‘Om Bali’. I had a bumper sticker on my 1972 Honda Civic that said ‘Om Bali’. I like the sound of it, so Om Bali!! Until tomorrow.

But it’s true. A lovely little posy of lavender, freshly cut, makes such a welcoming and attractive adornment to any room of the house. I know that’s probably noteworthy and interesting to less than 0.5% of the population, but you can count me in. I cut quite a few posies of lavender this weekend and placed them in oddly shaped vases and jars all over the house.

Ah….. the house. We’ve returned from our weekend at our house. It’s Sunday, late, and all I really have time for right now at almost 22:00 hours is my shadow shot submission. It’s a bit of a toss up because we went to the beach on Saturday, as the sun was dropping towards the horizon and WOW, you just can’t go wrong with shadow shots at that time of the day on a deserted beach – heavenly, even with kids in tow!

Peter’s girls spent a night with us and it was quite pleasant, with a minimum of stress, which is really saying somethin’, but that’s another story. We all love the beach and we are all transformed the minute we glimpse the vast, glorious blue leading all the way to the horizon. Saturday’s weather was too stunningly beautiful to not be out in it, to not be at the beach. I think the promise of fish and chips and DVDs and icecream and popcorn afterwards made the prospect of an hour in the sun and fresh air all the more palatable to a couple of pubescent teenagers. So! A beautiful afternoon was had by all!!

Meanie and Peter were happy. Girls were happy! Little ‘family’ was happy and everyone ate up their fish and chips (which were not too bad) and afters and watched Ponyo and went to bed and had ‘Min’ stories and went to sleep. I think it odd that a 13 and 15 year old still have bed time stories, but if that’s what they want, Daddy is more than happy to oblige. It won’t last forever. None of it will. Some of it I’ll miss and other bits I’ll be happy to wave goodbye to, forever. But that’s a whole other story.

Photos, I leave you with. Monday is looming. We have had a yummy, ‘bread and butter pudding’ weekend. Is that somewhere between a Vegemite sandwich and creme brulee weekend? I think so. That’s what I’m talking about, anyway… You get it, don’t you?

I left the house filled with lavender. We’re not there to enjoy it, but there’s a strange comfort I feel, knowing it’s all there, waiting for us, for next time. God bless us all!

OK! One more photo. It’s after 10 now. Peter is snoring beside me. I need to put a stop to that right now. Any tips, other than just giving him a friendly ‘nudge’? Haha. Sorry darling. Bye Peeps! By the way Shadow Shot Sunday is here.